


Let nothing you dismay

by dancinguniverse



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: 12 Days of Christmas, Hallmark Christmas movie, M/M, canon era AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-02-21 21:40:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 12,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13152576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dancinguniverse/pseuds/dancinguniverse
Summary: A Winnix fic in the style of a Hallmark Christmas movie. When Nix crashes his car on a snowy December night, he’s rescued by lonely veteran Dick Winters. They find they could both use some holiday cheer.





	1. A partridge in a pear tree

It takes an eternity for the car to skid first one way, then the other on the icy road. The whole time, Nix pumps the breaks and steers into the curve and thinks, _I made it through the war for this._ He seems to have an eternity to consider his plight, and no way at all to avoid his fate. Which is also much like the war. It had been a shock to find himself on solid ground back in the states, alive and whole, and realize that somehow his death had skipped him over, left him responsible once again for living a normal life in peacetime. It was the one thing he hadn’t prepared for at all, which of course ensured its occurrence.

He’s on his way back from touring a Pennsylvania factory his father is thinking of acquiring. There were drinks afterward, which was only civilized, but it was only a few hours’ drive back to Nixon, so Nix hadn’t thought twice about the drive, the darkness. It had been a fine plan until the snow had started. At first, the gentle flakes had been almost pretty, frosting the trees along the road. But it soon thickened to a white out.

Well afterwards, he’ll realize that the only move that could have saved him was foresight: stopping the car at some filling station or diner where he could have waited out the storm. In the moments just before the crash, when he’s cursing the snow and feeling the car start to slide, he wishes he’d spent a little less time glad handing with the Pennsylvania plant manager, who knows how to tie one on but not much about running a plant. Not that Nix is one to talk, he supposes, but like can certainly recognize like.

He hasn’t passed a car in twenty minutes. His last thought before impact is that it will take him a long time to walk for help.

 

When Nix swims back toward consciousness, it’s because there’s an icy touch on his neck. Nix wants to flinch, to bat it away, but all he has so far is sensation, no response.

The ice hands slide around his neck, pressing on his pulse, and as his senses flicker back to life one by one, Nix realizes that it’s very quiet apart from a man’s jagged breathing.

 _I’ve been hit_ , he thinks, and it makes sense why everything feels so strange. But he doesn’t remember how, other than a hazy dream of snow. He says the first thing on his mind.

“Your hands are cold.” Immediately, he wishes he hadn’t spoken, because the motion makes his nose move, and there’s something on his face that hurts.

“Thank God,” a voice says, relief so naked and overwhelmed that Nix pries his eyes open, as if from a deep sleep. “Are you okay?”

“Am I hit?” Nix asks, but that’s not right. His car fades into focus around him, though the windshield is cracked and unfamiliar, trees pressing close all around. He knows the answer before the stranger says it, though he hesitates only a moment before speaking in a softer, less urgent tone.

“No. War’s over. Just a car accident.”

Nix grimaces, and that hurts worse than speaking, but he’s suddenly cold, and sharp, and pretty sure all his limbs are attached and in working order, so he fumbles for the door handle before realizing it’s already popped open.

The stranger’s hands are firm on his shoulder, his hip, as Nix maneuvers clumsily out of the car. “Are you okay?” he repeats.

Nix leans back against the door and surveys the crumpled hood of his car. He touches his nose gingerly, seeing a bright smear of blood. “I think so. I look okay?”

The stranger’s look is not encouraging.  “I bet you’ve had better.” It takes Nix a minute to realize he should be saying something to keep the conversation going, to convince this man he’s not in fact about to keel over. At the same time, he realizes the man has been patting him down for further injuries. He’s done before Nix can think to shake him off.

“Hey, do you live around here? Let me drive you home. Maybe even a hospital? You’re not going anywhere in your car.”

Nix shakes his head, relieved when his vision doesn’t spin. “I’m fine,” he says, believing it more this time. He takes a testing step. He sways a bit, but the man catches him before he can lose his balance entirely. The man has solid hands, eyes a bright blue in his worried face. “Promise,” he says. “I’ve had worse, too.”

“Well, let me help you out anyway. You’ll have to call someone about your car.”

Nix doesn’t argue when the man shifts Nix’s arm around his shoulder. The snow is uneven, and while he doesn’t lose his balance again, it feels shaky, like his legs still aren’t quite working right. “It’ll be a long tow. I’m from New Jersey.”

“I’m Dick Winters, by the way.”

“Lewis Nixon. Thanks for stopping.”

It’s not a long walk back to the road, but far enough to make even Nix a little queasy. He’d trampled quite a lot of undergrowth on his way off the road, and it’s probably only that that slowed him down enough that he’s walking away from this. “Sorry for the trouble,” he says, because he must be in the middle of nowhere. “Just take me to the closest phone, and I’ll get out of your hair.”

“Funny you should say that,” Dick says. He points down the road to where Nix can make out a mailbox, painted a cheery red underneath a line of snow. "You're lucky I was on my way home. We're a ways out of town, but the phone works just fine." 


	2. Turtle doves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter! Yesterday there was a hangover, and family to contend with, and a delayed flight, and this morning there was work. But you get a double post today to make up for it! I'll try to keep the rest of this on track. Yesterday should have been my craziest day of the 12.

Dick hangs up the phone just as Lewis taps on the kitchen doorframe. He blinks. While Lewis will definitely have black eyes tomorrow and looks the worse for wear, his appearance is shockingly better without blood dripping down his face.

There’d been a horrifying minute when Dick had seen the wrecked foliage and clear tire tracks across the road, a rear fender just visible from where Dick hurriedly pulled his truck over, only feet from his own driveway. He had pushed through the underbrush, seen the broken mirrors and the body lying still in the car, and he’d thought that he didn’t want to write any more letters home, hoped that at least if the man was dead, he wouldn’t be one of Dick’s.

But of course Dick doesn’t have men anymore, and the man in question is at least all right, though Dick doubts he’s as fine as he insists. Dick’s heart thumps reassuringly as Lewis walks into the kitchen under his own steam.

“Come on in,” he says, gesturing to the other seat at the kitchen table. “Sit down.”

“Thanks,” Lewis says, sitting gingerly. “I didn’t know what to do with the washcloth, so I just left it in the sink.”

“That’s alright,” Dick says, though he frowns. He’d been pretty clear that was all he expected when he gave it to Lewis.

Lewis glances around the kitchen, looking curiously over Dick’s spare counters. The blood sinking under his eyes makes him look exhausted, and his hair is laying damply over his forehead, a trickle of water running under one ear from where he’d washed up. Dick, who loved his men but had never been the mothering type of commander, feels a strong urge to reach out and wipe the drop away. He keeps his hands folded on the table.

“I called the auto shop,” he says instead. “They’re the only ones in the area with a tow truck, and they're closed up. I doubt anyone else will come out with the snow. You might have to wait until tomorrow. Is there someplace I could take you?”

Lewis frowns, taking in this news, then shakes his head. “I’ll just drive back.”

Dick quirks an eyebrow incredulously. “Your car is totaled.”

Lewis frowns some more, thinking. After a minute, he suggests, “Maybe I should call a tow truck.”

Dick’s other eyebrow goes up. He doesn’t have much of a baseline, but the slightly blank look to his face isn’t unfamiliar, seen on a hundred shell-shocked troops. Dick switches tracks.

“Maybe you should lie down,” he counters. “You think you might have a concussion?”

Lewis doesn’t know, but Dick is pretty sure. “We can call again in the morning. I don’t think you should be alone right now, or make any big decisions.”

Lewis opens his mouth, maybe to argue, but closes it again. “Maybe just for a while,” he admits.

A while is all Dick is planning to give him, since he doesn’t want the man slipping into a coma either, should it prove worse than a headache and some confusion. “I’ll wake you up in an hour,” he promises, and pushes his chair back to lead Lewis over to the couch in the next room.

He waits patiently while Lewis unties his shoes with painful slowness. He misses the laces a few times before he gives up and heels them off with effort. “You served?” Dick asks, trying to fill the silence.

“Eighty-second,” Lewis answers automatically. “Airborne.”

Dick straightens from his own seat. “Hundred and first,” he says. “You were at D-Day?”

“Me and everyone else who didn’t show up too late to the party,” Lewis says. “We could have passed each other in the air.”

“Probably did,” Dick agrees. He tries to picture this man as a paratrooper, then shies away. He’d rather not put either of them back there, even if only in imagination. He prefers the man here in front of him, taking the thick knitted blanket Dick offers him from the cedar chest, his mother’s housewarming gift.

“We’re not fraternizing, are we?” Lewis checks. “You don’t strike me as an enlisted man, even if you are calm in a crisis.”

Dick’s lips tug up in a smile. “Major.”  

“La-di-dah,” Lewis drawls, settling back into the cushions, eyes drifting shut. “A lowly lieutenant here. I made it up to captain, but it didn’t stick.”

“I’m sorry,” Dick says, for lack of anything better. Demotions aren’t usually a proud story.

“My fault,” Lewis admits breezily. “I wasn’t cut out for soldiering.”

Dick studies him for a moment, then takes a chance. “Thought it might have been your driving skills.”

Lewis’ eyes open, meeting Dick’s solemn gaze, and then he laughs, a loud, booming sound that he soon plasters over with a wince that has Dick feeling a little bad about the joke. The change to his face when he smiles is nothing short of enchanting, and Dick has to glance away. “You’re alright,” Lewis declares, and now Dick is definitely flushing. He stands. It doesn't matter what this man's smile looks like, or what he thinks of Dick. He'll be gone in the morning, and Dick just has to keep him safe until then. 

“Get some rest. I'll be here.”

"My hero," Lewis murmurs, eyes already drifting shut again. 


	3. French hens

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might have lied a little about angst, but don't worry. They're gonna be okay!

At nine, Dick says Lewis’ name, softly at first, and then louder. A little worried, he reaches out, shaking him by the shoulder. Lewis grumbles and pries his eyes open, then blinks a few times. “Thought that might have been a dream,” he admits, voice hoarse with sleep.

“Not a great dream,” Dick comments. “How are you feeling?”

“Believe me, I’ve had much worse dreams.” Lewis stretches, then stops with a wince. “And I feel like shit, honestly. You have any aspirin?”

“Sure.” Dick fetches the pills and a glass of water and then takes a seat in the chair next to the sofa. He watches as Lewis downs the aspirin and then sighs heavily, looking around as if lost.   

“I’m sorry about all this. If there’s a motel somewhere nearby, you could just drop me there.”

Dick nods toward the window. “It hasn’t stopped snowing. I think we’re both better off staying put. Besides,” he adds frankly. “You need someone to make sure you don’t die.”

Lewis huffs out another breath of laughter. “That’s more true than you know.” He sits back, but he doesn’t close his eyes. Instead, he takes a drink of water, watching Dick. “So what do you do now the war’s over, Major Winters?”

Dick shrugs, relaxing into his own chair. “Odd jobs. I’m a handyman, I guess you’d say. I’ve painted a few houses, patched a few roofs. Whatever people need.”

Lewis nods, and Dick wonders what he thinks of that. His visitor wears a dress shirt and shoes fancier than Dick’s church clothes, and his car, prior to the crash, was very nice indeed. But Lewis doesn’t look disappointed, only curious. “And you like it?”

Dick thinks. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. It’s the first time he’s admitted it. When his parents asked, he said it was good work. And it was. It paid the bills and it kept him busy enough. Lewis watches him, and Dick searches for the words. “I think maybe I was made for soldiering. I was good at it. But I didn’t like it. I don’t know what else I’ll do that will ever be that important. But I don’t ever want to hold a gun in my hands again.”

It’s the first time he’s said that, too. When he left the army, he’d thanked them for the opportunity. They’d wanted him to stay, and he’d considered it. He’d learned to be a leader, a teacher, a soldier, and he’s not exactly sorry, except that he’d also learned to be a killer. He doesn’t regret it, and he won’t ever do it again.

He couldn’t tell his parents that, or Ann, or DeEtta or anyone else from home. He could maybe tell Harry, but Harry is so excited to start his life with Kitty. Dick doesn’t know what he’s excited for anymore. Harry would listen, but he wouldn’t understand.

Nix looks at him though, eyes dark and serious, and Dick feels at last like someone does.

“I don’t know what I would have done, with or without the war,” Lewis offers. “I wasn’t good at being a soldier, but I guess I was good at my work. Intelligence,” he says, when Dick looks askance. “But I didn’t like the war either. Problem is, it was the first time I ever felt good at something. Hard to recapture that in a factory.”

Dick raises an eyebrow. “You don’t work in a factory.”

Lewis snorts. “No, worse. My family owns it.”

Dick isn’t sure how that’s worse in any way, and tells Lewis so.

“You don’t know my family,” Lewis says.

Dick doesn’t understand exactly, but Lewis is nodding off again.

“Get some more sleep,” he says, and Lewis nods his head against the cushion. This time, Dick doesn’t go anywhere, keeping watch from his post in the armchair.

 

He wakes Lewis up every hour, using his kitchen timer to keep track. In between, Dick catches naps himself. Lewis groans at being woken every time, but more often than not, he takes the time to ask Dick some question about his life.

At ten: “Where’s your family?” And Dick tells him they’re an hour away in Lancaster. Close enough to visit, far enough to preclude weekly dinners, his mother’s anxious eyes, his father’s measured gaze. He loves them, he does. But they expected him to be the same college boy who went away to war, and he doesn’t know how to talk to them now. Lewis nods as if he understands, but when Dick asks, he just shrugs.

“My family does most of their communicating in the form of shouting, usually aided by liberal alcohol consumption. I guess it’s not worse since I got back, at least.”

Dick bites his tongue, wanting to tread lightly. “You keep any friends from the war?”

Lewis shrugs. “One drinking buddy is a lot like the next, you know?”

Dick doesn’t, and tells him so, and why. Lewis tips his head back, eyes closing this time as if in prayer. “Of course you’re a teetotaler. Just my luck.”

Dick doesn’t know what to make of this, and by the time he thinks of a rejoinder, Lewis has drifted back to sleep.

At midnight: “Where’d you do your training?” And Dick tells him about Georgia, about his first jump, about Harry and Sobel and his men.

Lewis tells him about Louisiana, about being singled out for intelligence early on. It was partly his aptitude for languages and maps, and partly the strings he had an old professor pull, after he got tired of weapons drills.  He made his first combat jump into Italy. He’d been there during peacetime, on vacation with his parents when he was younger. Then he invaded it with the United States Army, and saw all its history and beauty being ripped to shreds. It was the first time for him, but it was far from the last.  

At three: “You got a sweetheart?” And Dick tenses for a moment, but then tells him about DeEtta, about the letters they wrote across the war, about how he hasn’t seen her but the once since he got back.

“I thought maybe, for a while,” Dick says. “But it wasn’t right. She’s a fine girl. But I don’t know that I’ll talk to her again, let alone see her.”

Nix smiles faintly before he speaks, but it’s a bitter look, nothing like his earlier delight at Dick’s joke. “I was married.”

“Dear John?” Dick hazards. He doesn’t have the right to feel disappointed. Marriage is a lot more serious than a series of letters.

“And then some.” His look darkens. “She took my dog.”

“I’m sorry,” Dick says. He hasn’t had a dog since he was a boy, but he was devastated when she died, while he was college. “You could get a new dog, even if it’s not the same.”

“She took my kid, too,” Lewis reflects, though he looks less concerned about this.

“I’m sorry,” he repeats, baffled.

Lewis shakes his head, leaning his head back. “Probably for the best. I wasn’t good at being a father, either.”  

 

Dick wakes him up a last time just before five. Dick figures if he hasn’t slipped into a coma yet, he’s probably safe. He shakes Lewis’ leg, and Lewis opens his bruised eyes. “Still alive,” he croaks, and Dick smiles.

“Glad to hear it.” He settles back into his chair. He doesn’t think he’ll sleep again. It’s still dark, but his body knows it should get up soon anyway, and sleep refuses to tiptoe any closer after being driven away so many times.

“Hey. Dick.”

Lewis’ voice is soft, and Dick looks over, finding himself being studied, albeit sleepily. “I’m here.”

“Are you a friend of Dorothy?”

Dick frowns at him in the dark, puzzled. “Do you mean Mrs. Clyde, the sheriff’s wife?”

“No.” Lewis stares at him, clearly waiting, but Dick doesn’t know any other Dorothys.

“Then no, I’m not. Sorry.”

Lewis sighs deeply. “That’s okay.”

Dicks worries a little, but that’s the last non-sequitur. When he wakes Nix up for good a little after eight, setting a cup of coffee down on the low table, Lewis pushes himself up on his elbows, wincing, but his eyes are clear underneath the bruises. “Okay,” he admits. “I’m feeling that. Feels like I did another jump.”

Dick remembers the bruising across his chest from where the parachute grabbed him, the kick as it opened and caught air. “You see any of the recruits who hit themselves in the face with their rifle butts when the chute went off?”

Lewis laughs weakly. “I bear a resemblance?”

“More than a little,” Dick admits.

Lewis rubs a hand through his hair, which only causes it to stick up further. “Do you want a shower?” Dick asks him. “I can call the auto shop, see about getting you going again.”

“You’re a saint, Dick Winters,” Lewis says, and attempts to push himself to his feet. He grimaces as stiff muscles protest, and falls back onto the couch. Dick stands and grabs his wrists, pulling him to his feet, then steadies him, hands gripping his forearms until he’s sure Lewis is up. Lewis grips his arms back, taking longer than Dick thought he might to let go.

“Just helping out,” Dick says. It sounds inane even to his ears, and he blushes when Lewis laughs again, pulling away.

“Yeah.” Lewis starts up the stairs to the bathroom, then turns, one hand still on the rail. “Hey, let me take you to breakfast. It’s the least I can do after last night.”

And Dick, though he knows it might be polite to refuse, doesn’t. He likes it when Nix smiles at him, and he knows what it means, and he’ll stretch this as long as he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Friend of Dorothy: period slang for a gay man, used as a bit of an insider's code. Dick is not part of any scene, unfortunately, gay or otherwise.


	4. Calling birds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, hey. The Christmas mood I promised. Also, this concludes the first act of the story, which is subtitled in my head: "They stay up late, swapping manly stories, and in the morning Nix takes him out for waffles."

Dick takes him to a true diner car, with a bell that tinkles when they enter. There are pine garlands draped over the kitchen peek-through, and red bows tied to each of the hanging light fixtures. Over the sizzle of bacon and the clatter of silverware, Christmas music blares from a radio perched next to the register.

“Thank goodness,” Nix says, sotto voice. “I might have forgotten what month it is.”

Dick looks at him, and it’s probably meant to be disapproving, but there’s a smile pulling at the side of his mouth. “Frannie likes holidays. And she’s… not a subtle person.”

The woman who bustles over to their table certainly wastes no time. “Morning, Dick! Who’s your friend? Haven’t seen you around here before,” she adds to Nix, almost as a challenge. Nix cuts his eyes over to Dick, who isn’t any help at all, calmly flipping their mugs and sliding them to the table edge for Frannie to fill.

“My car got into a tussle with a tree last night,” Nix says. “Dick’s been helping me out.”

Frannie eyes him critically for a moment after pouring his coffee cup, apparently holding it hostage. “The snow, or too big a tipple?”

“Frannie,” Dick says, warning, but she doesn’t break eye contact.

Nix blinks, taken aback. “A little of both,” he admits, after a moment’s hesitation.  

Frannie checks him over once more, looks at Dick, and then beams at Nix, her face transformed into motherly delight. She finally sets his cup down in front of him. “We’ve all been there,” she confides. “You got lucky with this one finding you.”

Nix relaxes. “Don’t I know it.” He grins over at his rescuer, and is tickled when Dick blushes faintly, studiously inspecting his coffee mug and avoiding Nix’s gaze.

“You know he was a major in the army? Jumped out of airplanes and everything.”

“Lewis was in the paratroops, too,” Dick interjects, clearly trying to head her off.  He meets Nix’s eyes again, embarrassed, but Nix just smiles at him.

Frannie grins even wider. “Well aren’t you quite the pair?” She surprises Nix by reaching out, cupping his chin with a warm hand and turning his face, inspecting him. Her grip is solid, and it should be strange, but this whole ordeal has been strange. Dick seems less concerned than resigned, so Nix meets her gaze squarely.

She’s not an attractive woman, exactly. She’s nearly Nix’s mother’s age, and she probably samples her own wares a bit too often, her apron straining around her sides. But unlike Nix’s mother, the lines on Frannie’s face are from laughter, not stress, and her eyes are surprisingly kind as she searches his face.

She chucks him on the chin as she releases him. “You clean up nice when you’re not in a car wreck, I bet,” she pronounces. She winks broadly at Dick, who freezes, face going instantly, curiously blank.

Nix sits back, sipping his coffee and thinking. He had tried, last night, to ask Dick whether there was anything here to pursue. The answer hadn’t been encouraging, but he supposes it hadn’t been conclusive, either. Neither is his reaction now, which could easily go either way. He is a teetotaler, Nix remembers glumly.  The odds probably aren’t in Nix’s favor, no matter how pretty Dick blushes.

Luckily, Frannie takes pity on them both at this point, and reaches behind her for a menu. “You having your usual, hon?” she asks Dick, and he agrees hurriedly.

Nix scans the menu and orders at random, choosing quickly in the hope that Frannie will leave again so Dick can stop looking like he forgot what emotions are. She does indeed walk away with their orders, disappearing into the kitchen with a burst of orders to the cook.

Dick is still looking into his coffee as if it holds the secrets of the universe. Nix kicks his foot gently under the table. Dick looks up, and Nix can’t bring himself to push it. Not here, with Frannie just over the counter, and “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing,” blasting over the radio.

“Think the auto shop will be open today?” he asks instead, and Dick visibly relaxes.

“Sure,” he answers. “We’ll stop by after breakfast. I’m sure they can dig you out. Still doubt you’ll be going anywhere in your own car today though.”

Nix sighs. He had liked that car. “Is there a train station nearby?”

Dick shrugs. “Not too far. I can drop you off.”

Nix chances a smile again. "Not tired of me yet?"

Dick's face flickers for a moment, but then he smiles back. "Not yet." And Nix contents himself with that. 

 

 

Dick walks him into the train station just before noon, waiting while Nix checks the schedule again and buys himself a ticket for home. His car is resting at the mechanic's shop, awaiting its fate, whether salvage or scrap. They debate the likelihood of the two outcomes until Nix's train huffs into the station and releases its trickle of passengers. Nix watches them climb down, and keeps watching while new passengers climb the stairs to take their places. It's loud, which covers the quiet that has fallen between him and Dick. He should just say good-bye. He should have said it five minutes ago, if not five hours. He doesn't want to.

Finally, the warning whistle blows. When Nix turns, Dick is watching him, hands in his pockets. He hadn't brought gloves, and he'd been hiding them in his pockets everywhere they went. 

That's easier to deal with than good-bye. Nix digs in his own pocket, pulling out the fine winter gloves he'd bought himself the winter before the war. They've only had a season of use, after all, and they're warm and soft. "Take these," he says. It feels a little ridiculous, but Dick had refused any money, as Nix had guessed he would. He'd taken the breakfast as his only due, content to be paid in bacon and eggs and coffee. 

"What? No," Dick protests, but Nix doesn't change his mind once he's made it up about something. 

"I've got another pair at home. You've been cold all morning. I owe you way more than a pair of gloves anyway." 

"I can't take your gloves," Dick insists, so Nix doubles down, tucking them into Dick's pocket himself. Dick jumps a little, but doesn't move away, freezing again. 

"You can," Nix says. "Please do. It'll make me feel better. I can't actually say thank you anymore." 

Dick nods, looking serious. "Well, then. Thank you." He reaches out one hand, still bare, and Nix grips his cold hand with his own warm one. "It was nice meeting you, Lewis." 

"See you around," Nix says, because it's the best he can do.

He boards his train, and forces himself not to look out the window as the train pulls away. 


	5. Golden rings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry again for lateness. I do have an outline! I will finish, even if I don't make my original schedule.

Nix falls into bed when he gets home, exhausted by the long night and the headache still pushing at his temples. He wakes around seven, rumpled and overwarm, but his headache is slightly better. His house is quieter than he remembers. He turns on lights, wandering downstairs to open up a can of soup. He turns on the radio for company while it heats, and then drifts into the hall. He turns on another light, and then leans in to examine himself in the gilded mirror by the front door.

He still looks atrocious, bruised darkly across his nose and under both eyes, the skin puffy and swollen under its discoloration. He had bitten his lip sometime during the accident, and there’s a dark line of dried blood where he’d re-opened it a few times. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and stubble darkens his jaw and cheeks. Nix thinks that might be helping, for once. It obscures at least a little of the damage even if it doesn’t, perhaps, make him look any more respectable.

He smooths his hair back with a sigh. So much for good impressions.

It was ridiculous, anyway. Nix doesn’t even know what he’d hoped for. The poor man had dragged him out of the snow, watched over him with a head wound, and helped him find a tow truck. It had a certain romantic flair, but it was also the work of a man far more generous and good-hearted than Nix could ever claim to be or deserve. Dick references God like it’s an actual presence in his life, while Nix can’t remember the last time he mentioned the Lord’s name not in vain. Dick doesn’t even drink, and that alone should be a deal-breaker.

But Dick had picked Nix up in all his disarray and cleaned him off, laughed at his jokes and all but pronounced him good. Nix isn’t at all sure Dick wouldn’t have done the same to any other dumb drunk with his luck, but he’s very sure that few people would have done the same in Dick’s place.

Nix had known a lot of heroes in the war. He’d seen plenty of brave acts, selfless acts, acts of defiant kindness in the face of violence and death. But war is war, and Nix hadn’t ever been idealistic enough to think that sort of thing would come home again. They’d left the war behind in Europe, and the heroes with it.

Or at least Nix had. Dick sounds like he’s carrying the war with him still. Maybe not like some of the boys Nix hears about, but Nix knew well the look in Dick’s eyes when he described his handyman jobs, and it wasn’t that of a man who found fulfillment in his work. Nix had liked his work during the war, but Dick had liked the man he’d been in the war. Nix could hear it, the way he talked about his men, his duties.  

Dick could be happy again, Nix thinks. A man who’s liked himself once will find his way back to it again. Nix has never quite known happiness with his own lot in life. Too many expectations, or maybe too few. He supposes he’s been content at times, or at least sated. Life has many pleasures, and Nix has known most of them, in one form or another. But fulfillment is a different beast.  

Nix takes the pot off the burner and drinks his soup right out of a bowl while standing at the kitchen counter. His mother would be appalled, but maybe he has carried one or two things home from the war after all. He drinks the soup down quickly, leaves the bowl in the sink, and retreats back upstairs.

 

He wakes up the next day somehow sorer than after a night on Dick’s couch, and it’s after noon by the time he pulls himself from bed again. It’s Saturday, so he gives himself the day off to lounge and read, and by Sunday he’s ready to face the world again.

He shows his face at Sunday dinner, and his father lets out a bark of laughter when he walks into the living room. “What happened to you?”

“Car accident,” he says. “I skidded off the road in the snow on Thursday. The car looks worse.”

“That’s a tall claim.” Stanhope turns in his chair to watch as Nix crosses to the bar, pouring himself a double. It doesn’t do to go easy on the sauce around Stanhope, and it wouldn’t be appreciated if he tried. “Where’d it happen?”

“On the way back from Harrisburg. Had to take a train back.” He’s already decided that his father gets no part of Dick Winters, but he’s not surprised when he doesn’t ask for details.

“So you at least made it to the plant before you forgot how to drive? It’s snow, Lewis. Happens every winter.”

“You’ve lost a car or two over the years.”

Stanhope waves his empty glass at Nix, who takes it and gives him a refill without comment. “What’d you think of Harrisburg?”

Nix hands Stanhope back his glass and sits across from him, crossing his ankle over his knee. He hadn’t really thought about it, in all the confusion. He’d been a lot more concerned about his car. His mouth is open to say, _I think they have more management problems than we do_ , which would be saying something, and also probably start a row, but then it hits him.

“You know, it was hard to say. I didn’t get to see everything. I was thinking about heading back over next week.”

Stanhope grunts. “You want a chance to expense another dinner.”

Nix grins. “Never hurts.” His father chuckles at that, and Nix sits back. He has a plan.


	6. Geese a laying

Dick watches Lewis’ train until it disappears around a bend in the tracks. Then he shakes himself and goes to pick up groceries for the week.

Still, he finds himself humming as he walks through the aisles. When he brings his purchases to the front, Hank smiles at him with more than his usual cheer. “You look like you’ve got some holiday spirit.”

Dick looks up, surprised, from the apples he was setting down at the register. “Had a good morning, I guess.” He hadn’t realized it was that obvious.

“Anything in particular?”

“Made a friend,” he says, after thinking about it for a moment. “Got to help him out of a mess.”

Hank nods, fingers flying over his register. “That’s a good feeling. He doing alright now?”

Dick watches his apples and bread and bacon going into the grocery sacks. “I hope so.”

He doesn’t know what to make of Lewis. He could be pretty sure he’d left him in a better state than he’d found him, but that isn’t saying much. Lewis is the first person Dick has talked to since he got home who understands him, but he isn’t sure that’s a good thing for Lewis' sake. Dick’s life isn’t bad compared to what he knows is out there: he isn’t in a foxhole, he isn’t marching, he isn’t in one of those camps. And for that he’s grateful. He only wishes he could be more grateful to be somewhere, instead of not being somewhere else. And he doesn’t wish anyone else to share his particular funk, though it had felt lighter with company.

He goes home and puts away his groceries, and he goes to bed still thinking about Lewis' laugh. Saturday he spends in Mrs. Kay's bathroom, redoing her tiles. He hasn't done much tile work, but she'd asked him, and he'd asked around and read a book, and he thinks he doesn't do too bad a job. 

Sunday he goes to church, the same tiny white building that the town has used for the past hundred years at least. They light another candle in the wreath, and Dick bows his head and thanks God for seatbelts and silver linings. He can't thank God for Lewis' accident, but he can thank Him for letting Dick find him, for putting them together, if just for a night. He prays for his family and Easy, like he always does. And he prays that Lewis made it home safely. 

In the afternoon he he writes Harry, because it’s been a few weeks and because Harry will get a kick out of Lewis’ misadventure. Dick won’t tell him everything of course. Not the way Lewis' smile made his heart beat faster, or the way his hair fell across his eyes in the morning. But he can tell him that he met another paratrooper in the snow, and about his fancy, busted car, and that he took Dick out for breakfast at Frannie’s.

_It’s probably wishful thinking, but I hope he stops through again someday,_ Dick writes, because that’s safe enough. _He was good company._

He knows Harry and Kitty worry about him. _There is such a thing as too much quiet_ , Harry had insisted, the last time he’d visited. They’d seen each other a few times after they got back, and of course there’d been the wedding this past spring. But they’ve got a baby on the way now, and Dick is doubtful that Harry will have much free time in the coming year, or after, for visiting.

His parents worry too, of course. He thinks they might even be hurt, that he chose to rent a tiny house this far away rather than stay in Lancaster. But the rent isn’t unreasonable, and he’d just needed… space. Quiet. Fewer eyes, marking all the ways he came back different.

Not everyone can be Harry, madly in love and feet firmly planted back in home soil. But he’s doing okay.

And then his phone rings.


	7. Swans a swimming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The dates are meaningless! Who cares! Still has 12 parts!

Dick is still scribbling Harry’s address on the envelope when he picks up the handset. “Hello?”

“Dick? It’s Lewis Nixon.”

Dick puts down his pen. “Hi.” He wets his lips, casting about for something to say, because _I’ve missed you_ seems forward. “How are you?”

“Good, good,” Lewis says. “A lot better. Thanks again for all your help the other night. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t stopped.”

Dick twists the phone cord around a finger, watching it spin itself free again. “I was glad to help,” he says honestly. “I don’t get a lot of company out here,” he adds, in a rush of honesty.

Lewis’ laughter crackles across the line, and Dick’s grip tightens on the handset. “That explains it, then.”

“Explains what?”

“Your low standards,” Lewis explains. “I couldn’t have been scintillating company that night.”

Dick wishes he could see Lewis’ face. He was expressive, mouth and eyes alike, and Dick had liked watching him, had learned as much about the man from his face as from the words he spoke that long night. On the phone, Dick feels wrong-footed and uncertain, and he doesn’t like the feeling.

“You were fine.” He nearly bites his tongue. _Fine_. But he can’t think of a way to correct it without tripping over himself.

“Fine,” Lewis repeats. “Well.” He laughs again, shorter this time. “Glad I was fine.” Dick knows he should say something, but Lewis spares him before he has time for more than one agonized, indecisive breath. “Say, if you’re not tired of my fine company, I’m going to take another look at that factory I was mentioning later this week. Wondered if I might stop by. Take you to lunch.”

“I’d like that,” Dick says, relieved to have the words readily at hand. “When did you have in mind?”

“Thursday?”

They settle on a time (one) and a place (the diner again, which is really, Dick apologizes, the only sit-down option for lunch) before they hang up. After, Dick looks at his letter to Harry and thinks about amending it.  _He's coming back to town. I'm looking forward to seeing him again._ But after a minute, he slides the letter in and seals it shut. He should wait to see how things go. 

 

The week seems interminably slow. Dick has a few odd jobs. He helps the Resniks paint their living and dining rooms. He installs a new sink for Mr. Farley, who can’t lift much anymore, though he can and does watch hawk-eyed and with commentary as Dick takes apart his old sink, then installs, tests, and fixes his new one.

At least that day is busy. On Wednesday he has no work at all, and his thoughts fly in circles until he thinks he’ll go nuts. He goes for a run instead, despite the cold weather. By the time he pounds back up the porch and into the house an hour later his ears burn and his nose is running, but at least he’s tired himself out.

Thursday morning he forces himself to go to the bank, and the hardware store, and the library, but he’s still a half-hour early when he pushes open the door to Frannie’s and slides into a booth.

“Breakfast or lunch?” Frannie asks, sliding him a cup of coffee, which Dick will have either way.

“Neither just yet, thanks. I’m meeting someone.”

Frannie puts her hands on her hip. “That paratrooper who can’t drive?”

Dick smiles. “Afraid so.”

Frannie pats his hand where it lays on the table. “Good for you, honey.”

Dick is still digesting that particular response when she returns with a caramel roll, the ones as big as a softball that she makes only when she’s in a particularly good mood. “On the house,” she tells him.

Dick protests, but Frannie gets conveniently distracted by a kitchen order coming up, and she bustles away from him in a hurry.

Dick nurses his coffee. It’s snowing again. Lightly today, just flurries. He hopes it’s not heavier wherever Lewis is driving from.

The entry bell tinkles, and Dick picks his head up, but it’s only Tom Jordan from the fire station. He lights on Dick, who nods a greeting, and he slides into the booth opposite Dick. Tom is Frannie’s cousin, and he’s there more days than not, as much a fixture of the diner as the coffee pot or the radio.

“Cold out there,” he announces. “But looking pretty. This sticks around, we might get a white Christmas.”

“That’d be nice,” Dick agrees. “How’s your morning?” Tom can be chatty, but he means well, and right now Dick is grateful for the distraction.

Tom is only too happy to share the station’s monthly cleaning routines, which the whole town is reasonably familiar with, given Tom’s loquacity. Dick settles back and nods in all the right spots, until Tom spies Dick’s caramel roll and perks up. “Special occasion?”

Dick shrugs. “I’m meeting a friend for lunch. Frannie thought I could share, I guess.”

“The captain who wrapped his car around a tree?”

Dick squints a little. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t talked to Tom in the past week. “That’s the one,” he answers, a little wary.

Tom jumps up, scooping his hat and gloves off the vinyl seat. “Well hell, Dick, you should have said something. I don’t want to be busting in on your meal.”

“Like it’d be the first time,” Frannie interjects, swooping by and refilling Dick’s coffee mug. “I told you that boy would be back. What do you think he’s just sitting around for? I wouldn’t leave Dick waiting.” She turns to Dick. “Where’s your young man at? Speaking of waiting.”

Her tone is accusing, and Dick blinks at them both, taken aback. “I was early,” he says. “He’s alright.”

They all turn to look at the clock, reading ten to, and so Dick misses Lewis walking up the sidewalk until the doorbell jingles again.

Lewis smiles when he spots Dick and walks over, pulling off his gloves and nodding genially to Frannie and Tom. “Morning. Hope I’m not late.”

“You’re just right,” Frannie assures him before Dick can get out more than _Good morning_. “I was just getting Dick some coffee. You want some?”

Lewis assents, and she pours him a cup and pushes the caramel roll towards him when she finishes. “This is for you two,” she announces. “I’ll get you a menu, Lewis.”

Dick bites his tongue. Frannie is his mother’s age, and he wouldn’t dare tell her to scram, but he badly wants to. Tom, bless his soul, simply claps Dick on the shoulder. “See you around, Dick. You have a good day, now.” He does stop to pat Lewis’ shoulder as well on his way to the counter, earning him a brief, confused glance from Lewis, but then he picks up the morning’s paper and at least pretends to become engrossed.

Lewis smiles at Dick, and Dick, despite the outside attention and interruption, can’t help but smile back.


	8. Maids a milking

“Hey,” Lewis says, softer than his first greeting, just for him, and Dick feels his whole face light up before he looks back to his coffee.

“Hi. Sorry about that.”

He can hear the smirk in Lewis’ voice, and he has to look up again to catch it. “They seem nice.”

Dick snorts, because there’s a mean twinkle underneath Lewis’ mild tone. “They do,” he agrees carefully, and revels in Lewis’ answering huff of laughter. Over at the counter, Tom pages through his paper, apparently absorbed, but Dick changes the subject before Lewis can go any further.

“How’s your car?”

Lewis groans. “Totaled. And I liked that car.”

“What are you going to do?”

Lewis waves a hand toward the window. “I borrowed one from my father. He won’t miss it, at least until I can find something new.”

Dick cranes his head to follow Lewis’ gesture, and sees a Cadillac parked along the curb. He gives a low whistle. “Not bad for a loaner.”

Lewis shrugs. “You can take her for a spin later, if you like. As long as you don’t wrap it around a tree, you’ll be one up on me.” Dick can’t argue with that, but neither does he want to agree too readily.

“How’s your factory?”

Lewis smirks. “Which one?” Dick just rolls his eyes, and Lewis laughs. “Harrisburg is a mess. We’re thinking about a takeover, but it might be more trouble than it’s worth. We’d have to sort out an awful lot of supply and logistics issues to make it worthwhile.”

“Wasn’t that your job in the war? S3?”

Lewis tosses a sugar packet at him, which Dick bats down easily, grinning. “You keep that to yourself. My father missed that particular bit of intel. Wouldn’t want him getting ideas.”   

“Pennsylvania isn’t so bad.”

“Believe me, I’m starting to see the appeal.”

Frannie interrupts again to bring over a menu, and Dick clamps down on the warm feeling suffusing his stomach. He tries not to read too much into Lewis, to see things that aren’t on offer. Still, he’s here, arms spread wide across the booth like he’s settling in to stay, and that’s something.  

“What are you doing for Christmas?” Dick asks.

“Usually, dinner at my family’s. My mother’s making noise about inviting the ex, though, so I might skip it this year.”

Dick frowns. “That seems… awkward.”

“Kathy going, or me not?” Lewis shrugs without waiting for a response. “It doesn’t matter. Probably a more peaceful night for all involved if I stay home. I can hang a stocking and not share my whiskey.”

Dick fiddles with his coffee spoon. “I used to love Christmas. Spending the day with family, good food, decorating the tree. I don’t know about this year though. Maybe I’ll just stay home too.”

He didn’t mean to fish, and for a moment, he’s worried Lewis will think he has to offer his company. He wasn’t looking for pity. But when he looks up, Lewis just looks troubled, dark eyes serious. “Your parents won’t miss you?”

“Sure they will,” Dick acknowledges. “Just… it’s hard. I’m not the boy they sent away to the army.”

Lewis nods. “Mine won’t. Miss me,” he clarifies. “They’ll carry on like always, they’ll still invite their friends, and whether I’m a there or not won’t even cross their minds. I’m not saying you owe them anything. But it sounds like you got along before the war. I bet they’ll love this Dick Winters too.”

Dick bows his head. “I do miss it all,” he admits. “I see everyone else putting up wreaths and trees and lights. It feels strange to do it by myself, but my house feels pretty barren.”

Lewis snorts. “I don’t think we ever decorated our own tree. I think my mother hired someone, like those people who set up shop windows.”

Dick stares. “Never?”

Lewis glances outside, at the powdery snow just beginning to dust his car. “What are you doing after lunch?” he asks, and Dick thinks about it.

“Getting a Christmas tree,” he decides. “As long as you’re coming.”

Lewis grins, teeth flashing white in his handsome face. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”


	9. Ladies dancing

They set out from Dick’s house that afternoon armed with a saw from Dick’s shed and a thermos of hot chocolate.

“So you were at least a little prepared for the Christmas spirit,” Nix had observed when Dick pulled out the cocoa and a pot.

Dick had flicked on the burner, pouring a bottle of milk into the pan. “My mother sent me home with a pound of it the last time I visited. Apparently half my letters home during the war were about the lack of fresh milk and real chocolate.”

Nix laughed in delight. “War is hell,” he observed, once he could say it with the gravity it deserved, and Dick had nodded solemnly, the corner of his mouth creeping up in a private, sideways smile that Nix carefully put away for darker days.

“I don’t know what I’m looking for,” he announces now, as Dick leads him ever deeper into the woods behind his house. He has the thermos, since they both trust Dick more with the saw.

“You’ll know when you see it,” Dick answers maddeningly.

Nix trudges through the snow for another few yards before he gives in. “Bu what does that mean?”

Dick looks back at him and grins goofily. “I don’t know. My dad always said it when we were doing this. It drove me nuts.”

Nix points out a handful of trees, and Dick dutifully examines each one before rejecting it.

They’ve been walking for half an hour, and Nix is starting to regret this adventure. Sure, he’d trudge through the snow to spend more time with Dick, and he knew that going in, but he thinks he could have made a harder play for sipping whiskey and hot chocolate in Dick’s living room, instead of catching only glimpses of his nose and cheeks, red from the cold, as they march through a snowy forest.

Dick stops, and Nix stops automatically, barely resisting the urge to fling his hand up in signal to the men who aren’t behind them. He grimaces, annoyed at himself, and tries to see what caught Dick’s attention. Then he does.

“Oh.” Nix looks to his left, and Dick is smiling at him. “Alright fine,” Nix admits. “I see it. I know it.”

The tree is perfect, just barely taller than Dick, full and marvelously shaped. It has a handsome dusting of snow, but as they walk around, shaking its branches, the snow falls but it doesn’t reveal any unsightly holes or imperfections.

Dick has Nix hold the tree steady while he gets down on the ground to saw. He’s done in a trice, and Nix eases the tree off its stump at Dick’s command.

“Now what?” he asks.

The answer is that they sit on a handy log and drink their hot chocolate until their feet start to go numb. They trade stories about their time in the Ardennes, but it feels remote, like a different universe compared to this quiet, comfortable forest.

Eventually, they head back. It’s a longer slog, dragging the tree behind them, on feet already going cold and numb. Nix can’t keep his hands in his pockets as he had on the walk out, since he’s taking his own turns lugging the tree.

By the time they get back to Dick’s house, they’re both cold and wet, and the light is already starting to go, early as it is yet. Dick looks at the tree and his door wistfully, and turns to Nix. “You want to get a fire started?”

Nix will happily take the easier job, in his opinion. He grabs the wood from where Dick points, and heads inside to shuck his boots and coat. By the time Dick lugs the tree inside, a cross brace now nailed to its trunk, Nix has a fire burning merrily in the hearth, and has his feet and hands tucked up nearly inside the firebox.

“Oh,” Dick says when he sees Nix’s bare feet on the hearthstone, and for a moment he just stares. Then he shakes himself. “Let me grab you some dry clothes.”  

Soon Nix is wrapped in a sweater that smells like the blanket he’d lain under the night of the car crash. It’s the smell of wool and cedar and an unfamiliar soap, and he bets that all of Dick’s sweaters smell like this, and Nix might be crazy for it already. He has Dick’s socks on his feet, and then, suddenly, he has Dick himself crouched next to him in front of the fire, their shoulders brushing, as Dick warms his own hands.

“Thanks for coming out with me,” Dick says. “It already smells like Christmas in here.”

It does, and even Nix isn’t immune to the sense memory of it, of childhood Christmases and cookies and days off from school. He looks over at their prize. “Job’s not done,” he points out. “You got any tinsel around here?”

The afternoon fades into evening, and Nix finds himself hanging ornaments. Dick's mother had sent him away with them, and he'd hidden them in a closet, but he touches each one with a familiar, gentle touch as he unwraps them that makes Nix's heart ache for a history he's never had. Dick turns on the radio and makes more hot chocolate, and sandwiches when they get hungry again, and it's late before Nix notices the time, and only because Dick yawns widely in the middle of a sentence. 

"Sorry," he says immediately, and Nix sets down his empty mug. The tree was finished an hour ago, and they've been sitting in front of the hearth, watching the fire crackle to itself. 

"No, I should go. I've got a drive ahead of me." He's a night owl, but Dick clearly isn't. "And you need your sleep." 

Dick doesn't argue, but he doesn't get up yet, either, and Nix waits. "I had a good time today," Dick tells him. "And," he pauses, and Nix tenses. "I think you were right." 

"I usually am," Nix agrees, and Dick relaxes a little, shoving a foot against his calf. "About what?"

"I think I should go home for Christmas. I don't feel the same as I did when I was a kid, but..." he looks around at the warm room, fire and tree and boots still piled in a corner. "This is nice, too. Plenty of folks never got their sons back. What kind of son would I be not to go home again?" 

Nix nudges his leg back. "Still a good one," he says. "Whatever you decide. But I think it'll do you good," he says honestly. 

Dick watches the fire, nodding absently, and then gives another huge yawn. 

"I should give you your stuff back," Nix says, looking down at his sweater and socks. Dick follows his gaze and shrugs. 

"Keep them," he says. "Give them back next time." 

Nix rolls the casual sound of _next time_ over in his head the whole drive home. 


	10. Lords a leaping

Nix has a few days to consider that he is also a son who made it home from the war. That perhaps his father is a loud, arrogant blowhard, but that Nix isn’t immune from those qualities himself, and that if he has a cushy job with few responsibilities, that it was hardly meant as a curse.

He doesn’t seem to be able to escape from wreaths and garlands and carols and cookies as the holiday draws closer, either at the office or around town, and he finds himself cheered instead of irked by it. He wasn’t a Scrooge by any means, but it had been a long time since he’d associated Christmas with anything but fancy parties with his parents, too much booze and too little company, or lousy ones overseas with exactly the inverse problem.

He doesn’t fool himself that he can Pollyanna his whole family into anything like the quiet support Dick describes, but he thinks their company is still better than being alone on Christmas Eve.

That optimism lasts until the second course, when Stanhope starts down a list of everything wrong with the company, including his family’s utter lack of contributions. Nix, under his mother’s pleading gaze, downs his wine in lieu of arguing.

But by the main course, Nix has had more than half a bottle of wine himself, not to mention the whiskeys before dinner, and the meal gets progressively louder. His mother’s pleading changes to surly silence, and then she finally joins in the shouting, as Nix had known she would. He doesn’t get it only from the one side.

He skips dessert and is back in his own house by eight, dumping his coat over a chair and kicking off his shoes with a vengeance. He could have had a quiet night. More fool him.

The phone rings just as he’s heading up the stairs to find a sweater, and he almost ignores it, having worked himself into a mood. There’s every chance it’s his mother, and he’s ready to keep the fight going when he stomps back downstairs, grabbing it off the hook with a jerk.

“Yes?” he snaps.

“Lewis?”

Nix blinks, and in an instant, the whole argument and awful dinner is an ocean away, farther than the war or the moon. “Dick.” He’s at a loss for a moment for what to say, struggling to switch gears, but Dick saves him.

“Merry Christmas Eve! How are you?”

“Better now,” he says, before he can think better of it. “How are you?”

“Good,” Dick says, and Nix can hear it’s true. His voice is warm, relaxed, and Nix can hear the muffled chatter of voices from a room beyond him, Christmas music playing faintly through a radio. “Stuffed. My mother outdid herself.”

Nix settles onto a corner of the kitchen table. “You made it back to Lancaster?”

“Yeah. Thanks for that, by the way. I don’t think I would have gone if it weren’t for you.”

“I’m glad it’s good.” And Nix is. It had crossed his mind, the short drive home from his parents’ house, that maybe he’d been wrong about all of it. Maybe his parents didn’t make his Christmas merry, and maybe he’d sent Dick into a shitshow just because he’d wanted things to be better for him. But he’s one for two, and he’s glad that it’s Dick for whom things have worked out.

“I wasn’t sure I’d reach you,” Dick says. “Did you make it to your family’s at all?”

“There and back,” Nix says, breezy. “They were fine.”

“Fine,” Dick repeats doubtfully. But Nix isn’t going to drag him down, not when he can hear laughter pealing across the line from Dick’s end, his mother or sister or even his beloved aunt he’s mentioned a few times.

“Fine,” Nix confirms. “So what’s in store for a Winters family Christmas? Midnight Mass? Caroling? Formal Yule log?”

“Well we have a big log,” Dick says, “so we’ll make do. Services for sure. My sister’s the only one who can carry a tune, so we’ll make her sing for us until she gets tired of showing off.”

Nix makes out a reasonably clear, _“I heard that!”_ from somewhere behind Dick, and grins.

“There’s a present for you under the tree,” Dick continues, unperturbed.

That pulls Nix up short. “For me?” he asks, not sure he heard correctly.

“I told my mother a friend had convinced me to come home after all. She decided that made you part of Christmas.”

“Well, I’m flattered,” Nix says, feeling more honestly bowled over. “You’ll have to hold onto it for me.”

“You’ll have to come back soon,” Dick returns.

"Count on it." There's a breathless pause on the line, and Nix thinks that whatever else he wants to say, he doesn't want to do in a room clearly full of Dick's family. "Look, you should go enjoy your night. Tell your mother thanks for the gift, whatever it is." 

"I will. Merry Christmas, Lew." 

"Merry Christmas." 

 _Lew_. He could get used to that. 


	11. Pipers piping

Christmas Day dawns cold but bright. Dick has a hard time sleeping in these days, but it takes him a while, staring at his childhood bedroom’s ceiling, to realize what seems strange about today. He’s used to Ann waking him up early on Christmas, creeping in before the sun is barely up, so they can whisper together before the day starts in earnest.

Dick spares a moment to admit that if he no longer feels like the child who used to inhabit this room, then Ann is likewise allowed to grow up. She’s a teenager now, coming up quickly on being an adult herself. She doesn’t believe in Santa Claus, and he hasn’t been home in years for her to sneak in on. It’s not surprising and it certainly shouldn’t give him a pang that she would take the chance for an extra hour of sleep.

There’s a tapping on his door, and it creaks open just a sliver. “Dick?” Ann whispers. She peeks around the door, looking uncertain. “Can I come in?”

Dick smiles, moving his legs to make room on the bed. “I was waiting for you.”

She grins. “Good.” When she pushes the door open, she does so with her foot, a cup of coffee in each hand. She hands him one, then settles herself at the foot of the bed, tucking her robe around her feet. It’s a new robe, taller to match her new height, but the gesture is the same as when she was six years old.

Dick knocks his mug gently against hers. “Merry Christmas. Thanks.”

“I thought we could add some new things to the old traditions. Wasn’t sure if you were still an early riser.”

Dick has to laugh. “I am now. You were the only reason I used to get up early. You didn’t give me a choice.” She looks surprised. “I didn’t mind,” he assures her. “Honest. I was hoping you’d come in this morning. It’s how Christmas is supposed to start.”

“I’m glad you came,” she says frankly. “Mom said you might not. She said you might need some quiet time to yourself, and that you did a lot of growing up overseas. I know all that. But I’m still glad you’re here.”

“Me too.” Dick rearranges his fingers around the mug, which is hot to the touch. He still thinks of coffee as a new, adult habit she’s taken up, maybe just for show, but then, he still thinks she shouldn’t be allowed to answer the telephone most times that he calls home. He’s probably not the only one struggling with changes.

“And I’m glad you’ve got a friend,” she pushes on, clearly determined. “Mom said you needed space, but I worried about you being all on your own. Do you think he’ll like the fudge?”

“Sure he will,” Dick says loyally. He supposes he has no idea if Lewis has much of a sweet tooth, but his mother has been perfecting her recipe since he was a small child, so the odds are certainly good. He wonders what Lewis will make of the small box, and hopes he doesn’t have to wait too long to find out.

 

Eventually, the smell of bacon pulls Dick and Ann downstairs. They eat breakfast, and they open gifts. Lewis’ sits with a small pile of fellows meant for friends and neighbors, stacked neatly to one side of the tree.

The first of those neighbors start to arrive, and Dick, who is still wearing pajama pants, escapes up to the bedroom to change. He hears the phone ring, but thinks nothing of it. The phone will be going off all day with well-wishes from the neighborhood, family on both sides, and friends for his mother, father, and sister.

When he makes his way back down the stairs though, he can hear Ann’s voice carrying clearly. “You know Dick failed his driving test twice when he first took it though, so don’t let him hold it over you or anything.”

He stops in front of the phone, raising his eyebrows at her. “It’s Lewis Nixon,” she whispers, hand over the receiver, and Dick’s heart lifts, a sudden giddy, soaring feeling he hadn’t anticipated at all. “He doesn’t sound like I expected.”

Dick holds out his hand, but she takes a moment, nodding and assenting to a few things. “Okay. Well Dick just came back down, so I’ll pass the phone, but you take care, Lewis.” She places the receiver in his hand, nodding decisively. “I like him,” she whispers, and then leaves him alone with the phone.

Dick places it to his ear. “Lew?”

“Merry Christmas. Your sister is quite the spitfire.” His voice runs over Dick’s skin like a trickle of water, soothing and electrifying all at once.

“I don’t know when it happened. And Merry Christmas.”

“And has your morning been suitably merry?” Lewis’ tone is teasing, and Dick relaxes into it, settling into a kitchen chair. He tells Lewis about his new leatherbound datebook, for all his odd jobs, from his parents, and the book he’d received from Ann. He tells him about Christmas breakfast, and Christmas coffee in bed with his sister.

“I think I’ll head home in a little while,” he finishes, voicing the feeling for the first time. He should probably have told his mother first, but he thinks she already knows. There’d been a look in her eyes all through breakfast. Not judging, simply watchful. “It’s been great, but it’s starting to get busy around here. I’d rather not overdo it.”

He thinks, but doesn’t say, that he doesn’t want to spoil the magic the day has wrought, how it feels like it’s already receding in the bustle of neighbors and the wrapping paper already up in smoke in the fireplace. He’ll come back again. Each time is a little easier.

“How’s your day going?”

"Oh, late start. Just finally dragged myself out of bed." Dick has a sudden image of Lewis still lounging among his pillows, sheets rumpled around him, hair disheveled and falling across his face, and has to focus again on the phone in his hand. 

"Holidays are good for sleeping in," he offers, and Lewis chuckles his agreement. 

"I just wanted to tell you Merry Christmas," Lewis says. "I know we said it last night, but it counts more this way." 

"Merry Christmas," Dick replies promptly, again. "I'm glad you called." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," Dick answers without hesitation. "And really, stop by again soon. Mom's present is semi-perishable." 

"I will." 


	12. Drummers drumming

Nix makes himself breakfast, toast and eggs and bacon. He putters around the house, keeping an eye on the creeping clock hands. He turns on the radio, and reads the sections he’d missed from the week’s paper. He takes a shower and gets dressed slowly, unsure who he’s dressing for. For haunting his empty house? For round two with his family? There’s a third possibility, and he thinks it over carefully, eye on the pale sky outside, threatening more snow but withholding for now.

He lasts until just after lunchtime, and then he curses, pulls on his warmest scarf, and gets into his car, pointing it west.

If he’s wrong, he could ruin everything. Showing up at a man’s house, unannounced, on Christmas Day of all times. He can’t say he was just passing through. He can’t say he just wanted to say Merry Christmas, because he’s already talked to him twice in the last 24 hours. He can’t pretend it’s anything other than what it is, that he just wants to be near Dick, that the phone isn’t enough anymore. But Dick had called him on Christmas Eve, and Dick hadn’t said anything about Nix calling back the very next day, at his parents’ house no less. Dick had told him to come by, and soon. Nix doesn’t have a lot of faith in good things, but he trusts Dick to an extent that nearly scares him.

A little over the border into Pennsylvania the snow starts drifting down. Nix eases up on the gas. He’ll never hear the end of it if he loses control again, and he’s a little far out yet to count on Dick digging him out a second time.

By the time he pulls into Dick’s driveway he’s moving at a creep. Dick’s truck isn’t in the driveway, and the snow has covered over any tire tracks that might show when he left. Dick had said he would head home today, but that was before the snow started again. And maybe his parents had more sway than Nix had anticipated.

Nix has gloves and a hat, and he settles in to wait. He runs the motor every now and then to keep the car from getting too frigid.

By three, he’s having trouble feeling his toes. He’s gotten soft, he thinks, reflecting on all the time he spent in foxholes during the war. Doubt starts to creep in. It had been a ridiculous plan. Not even a plan really, just a half-cocked idea he’d run with. Won’t he look like a fool if Dick has to rescue him from hypothermia this time, in his own driveway of all things.

Nix turns the key, the motor growling back to life. He decides to take a pass through town. He’ll get coffee somewhere, warm up, and then drive by Dick’s one last time before he turns to go home. With any luck, the snow will cover his tracks and he won’t have to admit the hours he spent in Dick’s driveway, waiting for him like a lovesick teenager.

He’s somehow managed to forget that it is, of course, Christmas Day. The town is silent, the tiny main street empty and buildings abandoned. Nix pulls up in front of the diner hopefully, but the lights are off, and he can see stools stacked neatly upside down on the counter.

Nix blows out a breath. The short drive has at least pumped some warm air into the car again, and it doesn’t turn immediately to steam, even if he still can’t fully feel his feet. He’s just about the put the car in reverse when there’s the faint jingle of a bell, and Nix looks up to see Frannie waving at him from the diner’s door.

He cracks open the car door.

“Lewis?” she calls. “I thought that was your car! Merry Christmas! What are you doing out here? Dick went back to Lancaster for the holiday.”

“I know,” he admits. “I thought he might be home by now, but no such luck. I was getting a little cold waiting, so –“

“Oh, you poor thing!” Frannie exclaims immediately. “Come right on in!”

Nix doesn’t wait to be told twice.

The inside of the diner feels warm as an oven by comparison, and there’s the familiar smell of coffee brewing. “You’re lucky I was around,” Frannie chatters to him, pulling down a mug and filling it with coffee. It’s warm even through his gloves, and he pulls them off with his teeth to press his fingers to the warm ceramic. “Damn coffeepot upstairs chose today of all days to go out, but that’s the benefit of owning a restaurant. No end to your kitchen supplies.”

“I’m glad you were around,” Nix says. “I was about to give up and drive home.”

“Did you tell Dick you were coming by?”

Nix occupies himself with taking a large swig of coffee, letting it scald the inside of his throat. It almost feels good. He shakes his head, and she makes a sympathetic face. “You want to come upstairs? I came down for coffee, no one can complain if I have a handsome young paratrooper help me carry it back up.”

Nix makes a face. “I appreciate that. But I think I’ll just swing by the house one more time. I wouldn’t want to miss him.”

She presses a hand to his shoulder. “I know that boy wouldn’t keep you waiting on purpose. I’m sure he’s hurrying home now and doesn’t even know why.”

She digs around under the counter until she comes up with a large thermos, which she insists on filling and giving to him. “You just bring that back next time you stop in.”

Nix tries to pay her for the coffee, but she refuses to touch his money. “It’s a Christmas gift. Me to you. We all worried about Dick, all alone in that house out there. He’s salt of the earth people, but I never saw him smile so much until you started coming around.”

Nix is caught off guard, unsure of his response, but Frannie leans forward and kisses him on the cheek. “Merry Christmas. Go meet your man.”

 

Nix has gone through his coffee, and the last of the car’s heat has faded. Nix knows he shouldn’t drift off, but he can’t bring himself to leave yet. He’ll give it just a few minutes more.

Distantly at first, then louder, snow crunches under heavy tires. An engine rumbles in the still, cold air. Nix lifts his head, and Dick’s truck pulls into view around the tree line, wheels neatly tracing the faded tire tracks from Nix's earlier path.

Nix is out of the car by the time Dick has cut the engine. Dick, for his part, seems to take an eternity to unbuckle his seatbelt and climb down from the truck. In Nix's favor, it seems to be because he can't take his eyes off Nix. For a moment they stare at each other across the white span of driveway. Snowflakes swirl down between them, blurring Dick’s face so Nix can’t make out his expression. All this time, and he hadn’t thought of anything to say. The snow muffles all other sounds, the ticking of the cooling engine the only noise.

“I was hoping you’d show up,” Dick says, and that releases Nix, sends him across the snow to take Dick’s hands. They're thick, wrapped in the gloves Nix had pressed onto him at the end of their first meeting. Nix had been glad to bestow them, glad not to see Dick's fingers looking white and bloodless from cold, but now he wants to rip them off, to reach underneath the leather and wool and see if Dick's pulse is hammering like Nix's. His cheeks and nose are already going red in the cold, but his eyes are warm and shining, and it gives Nix a feeling like VE day all over, champagne popped and bubbling, the battle over and won.

“I missed you two minutes after I hung up the phone,” he says in a rush. “I missed you before I was even out of your driveway.”

Dick smiles at him, blinding even in the fading light. “I missed you from the minute you left,” he says, and cups Nix’s face, gloves brushing Nix’s cold ears. Nix leans in, eyes slipping closed, and Dick kisses him.

His lips are cold, his nose is freezing where it brushes Nix’s cheek, and his mouth is fever warm. He grasps Nix’s face with infinite care, turning him with gentle fingers to kiss him more thoroughly, no hesitation left. Nix shifts his hands to Dick’s waist, reaching around to tug him closer, as close as they can be with coats and sweaters muffling all their touches. Nix can't feel his toes again, and he's never cared less. 

Finally Dick draws back, breath ghosting over Nix's face, and he shivers, not entirely due to the temperature. “Come inside,” Dick murmurs, hands slipping down to Nix’s shoulders, tracing along his arms. “You're freezing. Were you waiting long?"

_A war_ , Nix thinks.  _My whole life._ "No," he says aloud. "You came along at just the right time."  

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shout out to everyone who liked and commented and cheered me on in this fic. I'm one day past my deadline, but I'm feeling pretty good about this experience. Hope you all had as much fun reading as I had writing. Thanks for coming along for the ride. <3


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